CHAF Success Stories
We invite you to read a few of CHAF's success stories and hear
first-hand how CHAF is changing lives in our community.
Success Story:
Barbara Wallace
My name is Barbara Ruffin-Wallace, and I am a 40-year-old woman who has found her way out of homelessness thanks to CHAF and the people who make it possible. I became homeless when I was 25 years old, and lost my children to DSS. In the last fifteen years, I have never had a real place to call home. I have lived with relatives, friends, in shelters, programs, and even motels. Having that kind of instability in your life, and sometimes not knowing where you will be from one day to the next is one of the most terrible feelings in the world, and is something that no one should have to experience. I have also struggled with sobriety in the past, and I am proud to say that I am now celebrating being clean and sober for almost a year. Along the way, I tried on many occasions to obtain housing, and I lived briefly in some rooming houses. I left one SRO situation to live in a market-rate apartment, because I wanted to have my own space, but due to the fact that it was unaffordable for me, I was forced to leave after two months.
I finally decided in June of 2006 that I needed help finding affordable housing, and I went to HomeStart and asked for help. I met with my HomeStart worker every week and applied for lots of different housing opportunities. My advocate and I worked very well together, and I always felt supported and encouraged by her throughout my housing search. Thanks to my involvement with HomeStart, and after plugging away at housing applications for months, I finally got a Section 8 voucher and found my own apartment. For those of you who don’t know what a Section 8 voucher is, it means that I can keep this subsidy forever, even if I move to a new place or a new area. My apartment is lovely, and has two bedrooms so that even my 18-year-old son can come visit me on the weekends. I have not had a place where my son could come visit me for fifteen years. Being in and out of shelters made it difficult for me to see my son and spend time with him in a safe and comfortable environment. Now we finally have a place where we can be together and talk, or cook, or just watch a movie. The fact that he can say that he is going to his mom’s house to visit means the world to me.
I would not have been able to move into my new home without the help of CHAF, because I would not otherwise have been able to pay for the security deposit. There were no other funds available to me, and CHAF was literally a life saver. I owe so much to CHAF, and I just wanted to express my gratitude by writing this letter. I wanted to give something back by letting everyone know that a fund like CHAF really does make a huge difference in people’s lives, and it has made a huge difference in my life. Thank you so much for making it possible for me to finally have a home.
Success Story:
George Caponigro
I am very pleased to share my experiences and express my heartfelt gratitude for the help that CHAF provided me with.
The CHAF – HomeStart partnership is a model of how all segments of society can work together to solve the complex and difficult problems of homelessness.
I fell victim to the disease of alcoholism and the effects of bi-polar disorder after a series of events plunged me on a downward pattern and into homelessness. In one year, because of the progressive and long term effects of these conditions, my wife and children of twenty years left me, my family distanced themselves from me, I lost a business I worked twenty years to build, a major restaurant in Abbington, and I lost my mother, who I adored.
These events were just too devastating to overcome and led to my inability to resist the fall into homelessness. Over the past thirteen years, I have been able to get into recovery, obtained extensive therapy and built a support system. Getting an apartment is the first step back and I could not have obtained it without all the help CHAF and HomeStart gave me.
Thanks to CHAF, which helped me with the security deposit and moving costs, I was able to move into an apartment of my own. I have since been able to reunite with my family and have a home where my daughters and grandchildren are a full part of my everyday life again. A home is a necessary part of one's dignity and living an abundant life.
I hope my humble story in some small way helps each who reads it to understand how important your contributions to CHAF’s efforts are. They directly impact the homeless in a significant way.
I will end with a quote from Robert Kennedy “One Man, One Woman can make a difference.” A nation is only as strong as its weakest members. Everyone deserves a new beginning.
Success Story:
Norman Siegal
 Norman Siegel knows all too well what it's like to be on the
verge of homelessness. But thanks to the Cambridge Housing
Assistance Fund, life has changed
dramatically for this Cambridge resident.
In 2002, Norman shared his inspiring story at the annual CHAF
benefit concert before audience members. "I am here to
express my gratitude," Norman told the crowd. "Changing my
residence at this time in my life meant more to me than merely
moving from one address to another. It has allowed me to break
loose of a situation that I could not find a way to get free of."
Below is Norman's full speech to those gathered at the 2002 CHAF
benefit concert:
"I am pleased to have the chance to speak to you this evening.
It gives me the opportunity to express my gratitude to each of you
for the help I was given from CHAF when I moved four or five months
ago. I can only say that what you did at that time in my life was
not only important but crucial.
A serious illness in my twenties left me with a disabling physical
impairment. It has cost me a great deal of time and critically
limited my professional prospects. Though I have made myself into a
contributing member of the community as a music teacher my income
is small enough that I still need it to be somewhat supplemented
each month by Social Security.
Until about half a year ago when I was lucky enough to be ruled
eligible for a housing voucher, the chief way my low income
affected me was in terms of my living accommodations. To put it
bluntly, I was not able to discover a way to live on what I was
able to earn that felt to me suitable for a man my age. It was a
problem that seemed to have no solution or at least that I could
find no way to solve.
I had enough coming in to keep me alive, but it did not seem to
allow me to live in a way that was not provisional, shabby and
dispiriting. There was the possibility, of course, of sharing a
place with strangers as I had done in my twenties, but what felt
fine in my twenties felt radically wrong for a man in my forties.
I am not going to waste your time with a physical description of
this place I lived in for fifteen years or so. I will only say that
it seemed to confront every time I came home with overwhelming
evidence of my personal defeat.
I never could find a way to regard it as my home. It was simply
a place in which to keep my belongings, to sleep in and in which to
eat my meals. I felt both a tremendous yearning to get out of this
living situation and a terrible doubt that I would be able to find
a practical way to accomplish this.
Being awarded the housing voucher was both a godsend and an
enormous spur to action. When I at last found a place that seemed
adequate more or less, and that, at any rate, allowed me to escape
where I had been struck for so long, I found myself confronted with
several new problems that had to be solved if I were actually to
make the move. All of these were potential road blocks.
One was the problem that CHAF helped me with. Each month my
income was completely eaten up by the bills I had to pay and there
was never much if anything left over.
I could not find a way to gather any kind of war chest such as I
would have to have should I be asked to provide last month's rent
or security deposit. And the prospect of large-scale borrowing
filled me with a horror that I imagine is typical of a disabled
person on a very limited budget.
Finding a way to come up with the $1,000 for the security deposit
was what your fund helped me to do. I hope I have made clear to you
how pivotal this help of yours seemed to me.
And I think you can see that changing my residence at this time
in my life meant more to me than merely moving from one address to
another. It has allowed me to break loose of a situation that I
could not find a way to get free of. So I am here to express my
gratitude, to thank you for the good work that you have done for me
and I would guess for others in situations like mine."
Success Story: Farah Jama
 Farah Jama is one of the many individuals helped by CHAF. He
spoke to audience members at the Sixth Annual Benefit Concert
Below are highlights of his speech.
"I'm pleased to be here for the Sixth Annual Benefit Concert for the
Cambridge Housing Assistance Fund. I lived in Cambridge for 20 plus years, working in hotels and the
service business. Due to layoffs and budget cuts after 9/11, I was
on the verge of losing my apartment and sought help from the
Cambridge Multi Service Center for the Homeless and then from the
Cambridge Housing Assistance Fund. I was able to keep my apartment.
After that job I worked in human services as a counselor at CASPAR and again was laid off due to budget cuts and this time I
couldn't keep my apartment. I went through a transitional program
run by the Cambridge Department of Human Services, the Carey
Program, and after that, with help from CHAF I've been able to move
into my own apartment again.
I've been able to stay the course... and get a job doing what I
like most, which is helping other people. I am very grateful for
all the help CHAF has given people like me."
Farah Jama has been hired by HomeStart, to work as a Housing
Advocate. He will be working with homeless adults in Cambridge,
helping them move from a shelter to their own apartments.
Success Story: Laura Lopez
 Sometimes one stroke of bad luck leads to another and
homelessness becomes inevitable. And once you are in the street, it
becomes very difficult to conserve the mental and physical strength
necessary to solve the endless problems you face.
Homelessness is destructive. This is why prevention is so
important and prevention is a big part of what CHAF's partner
agencies do: keeping people in their housing so they never have to
deal with all the debilitating effects of homelessness.
Laura Lopez knows what it's like when things go from bad to
worse. Last year she lost her job due to budget cuts. Her
unemployment compensation took several months to be approved. As a
tenant in subsidized housing, she was entitled to have her rent
adjusted but through a series of administrative mix-ups, this was
delayed and Ms. Lopez found herself owing $1,000 in back rent.
At risk of being evicted, she was then diagnosed with cancer.
Thanks to CHAF funds, provided by the Cambridge Multi-Service
Center for the Homeless, Laura didn't end up on the streets. She
was able to keep her apartment and to keep on fighting for her
health and a new job.
Laura spoke to CHAF supporters as the Kickoff Reception in April
2005. "My name is Laura and I am one of those people that was at
the edge of losing my apartment. Seven months ago, I lost my job,
lost my car, I almost lost my apartment... and then I learned that
there was an agency in Cambridge... I am so grateful because (CHAF)
helped me... Through all these problems I ended up at the hospital
and thank God I have my apartment today because of this program.
Thank you all."
Success Story: Phillip Yard
 "Without CHAF I'd be in the streets," said Phillip Yard at
CHAF's 2005 Kickoff Reception at the Charles Hotel. "If this
program didn't come along in my life, I don't know where I'd be.
The people who helped me out: Marie, she went through thick and
thin for me and I appreciate that from the bottom of my heart."
Phillip is the primary caretaker for his daughter and
grandchild. He works full time and his expanding family needed
rental assistance to move into public housing. He got it from CHAF.
Part of CHAF's mission is to erase the stereotypes and stigma of
being without a home. We need to understand the obstacles faced by
those who are seeking affordable housing.
In each of the nearly 700 households assisted by CHAF in the
past six years, as Mayor Sullivan said, "are real people with real
faces." Many of CHAF's clients are working families and
individuals. Perhaps they're fallen on hard times. Or perhaps, they
just need a boost to a better living situation.
Many are working by day, in a shelter by night, scrimping and
saving and barely surviving. They finally find an apartment and
suddenly have to come up with first and last month's rent, security
deposit, moving costs - it all adds up! Often they just need a
boost: some matching funds to go with their savings. That's where
CHAF comes in - we help them over the hurdle to having a set of
keys to their own home. In these days of dwindling funding for
non-profits, your assistance is more crucial than ever to helping
others like Phillip.
Rebecca's Story: When
Working Full Time Isn't Enough
 In
today's world, working full-time doesn't open doors like it used
to. Minimum wage has fallen so far behind the cost of living that a
single person in Massachusetts needs to be earning more than three
times that amount to be able to afford a single bedroom apartment.
And even if affordable housing is available, saving for a security
deposit is often an impossible goal.
Witness Rebecca, a young single mother, lifetime Cambridge
resident, employed and yet virtually homeless in her own hometown.
"I was born and raised in Cambridge, living with my parents and a
seven year old son," said Rebecca. "My parents were relocating out
of state, forcing me into homelessness. I had been looking and
trying to save money for an apartment in Cambridge since my son was
born. But it seemed that every time I got ahead, I fell three steps
back. The rental market is just so expensive. I felt like I was
never going to be able to find an affordable apartment to raise my
child in Cambridge. I knew that I would never be able to afford to
come up with rent and a security deposit and I have been working
full time since I was 17 years old."
With the help of CHAF's partner, the Cambridge Multi-Service Center
for the Homeless, Rebecca was able to locate an affordable
apartment. She was thrilled but scared she wouldn't be able to take
it. "I had enough money saved for the first month's rent but not
for the security deposit," she said. Rebecca's case manager at the
Multi-Service Center, Naty Morrissey, immediately thought of CHAF.
"Naty told me not to worry and assured me that she could get some
help. Well sure enough, she got back tome with great news. Because
of CHAF's extremely generous service I was able to move into my own
apartment," said Rebecca. "Their wonderful program provided me with
enough money to cover the security deposit that I was just never
able to come up with on my own. I'm incredibly grateful that CHAF's
program is here to assist people like me to create a wonderful and
happy home." Rebecca now lives with her son in the same Cambridge
neighborhood she grew up in.
Success Story: Zobeida Zobeida is used to doing things right. She has an associates degree and had been working in bookkeeping for several years when she decided it made sense to return to school and go for her bachelors in accounting. With a four year degree in hand, she could get more interesting work, and better pay at the same time. She'd been saving by working an additional part-time job. So in September 2004, she enrolled at Bentley College and began to study.
Unfortunately, because of the course load, she could no longer work the two jobs, and her savings didn't go as far as she'd hoped. Zobeida realized that she was going to have trouble paying her rent. Her family couldn't help her out financially, so she spoke to her landlord who arranged for her to move to a more affordable unit in East Cambridge.
Then the real problems began. She was laid off in September 2005 and during the five months she was out of work, she couldn't keep up with the bills.
Her unemployment benefits didn't start coming until the middle of October. Again, Zobeida anticipated the problem and spoke to her landlord. "I was told by the manager that nothing could be done. My December rent went unpaid. I had to finish paying November and put money down on my other bills. In January 2006, I received the eviction letters." Zobeida had never been evicted before and continued to try to talk with the landlord and explain that she was still unemployed but actively seeking work.
In the end, it was Zobeida's landlord who referred her to Maria Melo, a case manager at the Multi-Service Center for the Homeless. Maria was able to provide CHAF funds to cover Zobeida's back rent. She also negotiated to have her rent reduced.
"Without this assistance I'd have been homeless, living in a shelter, and most likely would have had to quit school. I am very thankful that didn't happen." Zobeida is back on her feet with a job that she loves at the Massachusetts College of Arts which pays enough for her to continue working toward her bachelors at Bentley College. It costs CHAF on average $670 to prevent a family or individual like Zobeida from falling into homelessness. Once homeless, it costs $37,000 to keep them in the shelter system for a year.
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